Up the junction

Posted on May 5, 2011

Just in case you missed it, here’s a link to the text of Nadine Dorries’ speech in the House of Commons yesterday when she presented her ten-minute rule bill to Parliament – Sex Education (Required Content).

And here’s a list of the 67 MPs who voted in favour of the nonsensical proposal to “require schools to provide certain additional sex education to girls aged between 13 and 16; to provide that such education must include information and advice on the benefits of abstinence from sexual activity.”

Is yours one of the 67? If they are, you’ve got until January next year to help change their mind, because that’s when the bill is set to get its second reading.

Now while I agree with those who are saying we shouldn’t panic about the prospect of US style abstinence-only sex ed (which has repeatedlybeen shownnot to work) being taught to girls in our schools because there’s very little chance of Dorries’ bill getting through in the end, I’m also firmly of the view that we can’t afford to get complacent about this either. Dorries is on a mission, and as long as the voters of Mid Beds keep electing her to that bloody seat, she is not going to give up. And she’s not on her own.

Dorries did an interview recently (an interview incidentally in which she claimed to have a witnessed a foetus during a late-term abortion “in a uterus flinching away from the cannula as it was being inserted“, which is the first time I’ve heard her make that particular claim – she usually sticks with the Hand of Hope nonsense) with Ed West for the Catholic Herald, in which she said: “I need religious support. It is our core support. I need the churches being more involved, and the churches have been pathetic, pathetic, during the abortion debate in their support for what I was trying to do.”

Which wasn’t entirely truthful (no change there then). Okay, so maybe Dorries didn’t get the support she wanted from certain church establishments, but what she did get instead was a lot of support, and a lot of help, from certain figures on the religious right in this country. Andrea Minichiello Williams to name but one:

Williams is the director of the Christian Legal Centre and CEO of its sister organisation Christian Concern. She’s also former Director of Public Policy for the Lawyers Christian Fellowship, and is as big a fundie as you’re likely to find this side of the Atlantic. According to the Dispatches film posted above, she actually wrote the anti-abortion amendments that Dorries submitted to the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill as part of her 20 weeks campaign in 2008.

But Andrea Minichiello Williams is also a trustee for TnT Ministries, a charity which teaches people ‘how to teach the bible to children‘, and which also publishes teaching materials. Unsurprisingly TnT Ministries have drawn up a syllabus for those working with 14-18 year olds: it’s called The Junction, because apparently “If your youth group is in the 14-18 age bracket they are at a junction — a vital point in their lives where they need help to study the Bible in a way that is challenging and mind stretching.”

“By going through Bible passages in Genesis, Romans, Corinthians, and Ephesians, the group will discover God’s purposes for sex and relationships in the world that He has made. They will also discover God’s answer to the problem of our sinful natures and how to flee from our evil desires in a world marred by sin.”

And here’s one of the Bible passages they’ve chosen to help young people discover ‘God’s purposes for sex and relationships in the world‘:

“For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error.” Romans 1:26

As you’d expect, the rest of the chosen passages are all about sin, shame, and the resultant hell and damnation for those who succumb to their ‘sinful natures‘ and ‘evil desires’.

Let’s just hope that Nadine Dorries doesn’t call on Andrea Minichiello Williams to help her draw up her bill on abstinence-only sex education for girls.

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22 Comments

My Tory MP is one of the 67 – I’ve already fired off an email asking why the hell he feels able to support this disreputable nonsense. But his seat’s so bloody safe it’s hard to know how to make any impact. Any suggestions from other commenters welcome!

Incidentally, that claim about flinching foetuses sounds suspiciously like The Silent Scream– a particularly specious and misleading piece of anti-abortion propaganda dating back to 1984. Some fundie nutcase of an RE teacher at my all-girl school decided to show it to a class of 14-15 year-olds in the name of sex education, which is why a bell rang when I read your post.

I’d be willing to bet that, given Dorries’ usual standard of truth-telling, she’s referring to that rather than anything that actually happened in the real world.

Hi Cath,
Long time reader, first time posting. I’m not that familar with this issue or what Dorries is after (the link took me somewhere else). What is the problem with adding abstinence to the sex education curriculum? If it is implemented in addition to something more practical then surely it is not that big a deal? Or is Dorries after abstinence-only education?
Thanks

There are many issues with Dorries’ proposal, aside from the fact that as I’ve said in the piece, there is no evidence that abstinence education even works, and plenty to suggest that it doesn’t.

First off Dorries is only proposing that girls be given this education. Despite her acknowledging that it’s often boys who put pressure on girls to have sex – there’s nothing at all about a need to educate boys in her bill.

Also, as sex ed isn’t actually compulsory in schools (Labour tried to bring it in, but it was one of the policies the Tories ditched as soon as they got into office) and Dorries’ proposal is for abstinence sex ed for girls to be compulsory, it would be the only part of sex ed that is compulsory – this could leave us in the bizarre situation where in some schools abstinence education would be the only sex ed given.

But my principle objection is that this is not a stand-alone proposal. This is all part of Dorries’ right-wing Christian fundie agenda. She’s already working towards limiting abortion rights, which she aims to do by reducing the time limit, making women facing crisis pregnancies wait until they’ve had ‘counselling’ before they can access an abortion, and so on and so forth. Abstinence sex ed is part of this wider agenda, and it’s one that involves a gradual chipping away of women’s rights and women’s autonomy over their own bodies.

you forgot “and she’s a big homophobe” Cath. The problem with abstinence education to me would seem to be it’s teaching young women about doing nothing. Now whilst this is all very well in theory (and I’d be all in favour of young women receiving say, assertiveness training so they can make their wishes absolutely clear) the truth is that underage teens will have sex. Always have done, always will.

And it is surely preferable that they do so in full possession of the facts about safer sex and contraception than otherwise. Because as I already said, despite hardly any sex education at my (all girls) school, plenty of pupils were having sex under the age of 16. Mostly without any form of contraception whatsoever.

Perhaps we should also mention that Nadine Dorries, despite her devout Christian beliefs ran off with a married man and proceeded to badmouth his wife in the press.

Actually I’m a bit surprised at your opposition to Dorries’s bill, because you strongly supported Labour’s legislation on the sex industry and you’re strongly opposed to the padded-bras-for-girls thing (whatever is the equivalent attire for boys like?)

However, I can understand your chagrin, because I felt exactly the same way about Labour’s legislation on the sex industry, whose services I once needed.

Both pieces of legislation could have come straight out of Mary Whitehouse’s “Guide To Not Having Sex – Bumper New And Expanded Edition”! Alas – plus ca change, plus c’est la meme chose!

Of the 67 MPs supporting the bill, 61 were Conservative (out of a total of 307), 3 DUP, 2 Labour and 1 Liberal Democrat.

Fortunately the bill won’t get anywhere without government support, and Cameron’s new inclusive Conservative party has got to keep its reactionary rump out of the public gaze as far as possible, at least while he’s partying with the Liberal Democrats.

I can’t remember Cath ever writing about padded bras for girls Gulfstream5, but there’s a very big difference between sexualising (very young) girls and giving young women realistic information about sex I’d say. The second should be that dread word ’empowering’ if done properly.

Even I don’t remember ever having written about padded bras for girls David, but never mind, you’ve probably got a better memory than me or something.

Anyway, like Polly, I don’t see any contradiction in being against the sexualisation of young girls while also being opposed to Dorries’ bill. It’s one thing to be against girls and young women being sexually objectified in and by today’s culture, and another thing entirely to say that girls and young women should be basically shamed into maintaining their virginity, which is what Dorries’ proposal amounts to.

I actually think Dorries is being quite canny though, or at least, she was trying to be in her speech to the HoC yesterday. I think she thinks that if she appropriates some of the language of anti-porn, anti-objectification feminists, we’ll somehow be wowed into supporting her. Unfortunately for her, that tactic doesn’t wash.

In the Ed West interview I’ve linked to in the article Dorries says:

“I’m neither pro-choice nor pro-life,” she says. “I take the middle ground, and I find it hard to understand why anyone – especially feminists – could disagree with what I say if they are really concerned with women and their health issues.

I’ve no doubt she’ll be repeating that innocent “but I don’t understand, why don’t the feminists agree with me?” mantra for quite some time to come. Maybe one day she’ll get it – I’ll not be holding my breath though.

It’s all very simple really – either women are men’s sexual public property or else women and particularly teen girls are men’s private sexual property. In other words Dorries is a right-wing extremist determined to have legislation passed wherein once again women’s and girls’ bodies will be subjected to male-centric policing and control. Yes I know women and girls are already subjected to men’s policing and control – that is why we have the male-centric sexual double standard. But Dorries and her colleagues wish to turn the clock back so that women and teen girls have no control or ownership whatsoever over their bodies. Not so for males of course because they have always awarded themselves sexual autonomy and ownership of their bodies.

That is why Dorries is claiming teenage girls need to be taught sexual abstinence because unless male-defined phallocentric sexuality is engaged in within marriage it is ‘immoral.’ Boys and adult males however need no education concerning their sexual behaviour because they are not viewed as being accountable whenever a female is impregnated or even that male sexuality itself is socially constructed and is in urgent need of critique and challenge.

What Dorries doesn’t realise is that if girls are to be taught abstinence what will all those sexually obsessed males do as regarding gaining sexual access to females? Answer is males can engage in sexual activity with other males because Dorries is not remotely concerned about teen boys being taught abstinence.

Dorries is using the same deliberate tactics right-wing religious fundamentalists use when they attempt to claim anti-porn feminists agree with their views.

We do not support right-wing religious fundamentalists who claim porn is immoral, instead we state the issue of men’s deliberate sexualisation and dehumanisation of women is a violation of all women’s human right not to be reduced to men’s disposable sexualised commodities and subjected to male sexual violence because porn is supposedly ‘fantasy’ not filmed male sexual violence committed against women.

But Dorries is co-opting anti-feminist statements and twisting them around to suit her purpose. So in fact there is no difference between Dorries and her male/female anti-feminists and the innumerable left-wing libertarians who claim prostitution is ‘sex work’/pornography is empowering etc. etc. Both sides want the same thing – namely male control over women’s bodies and women’s sexualities. Right wing males and their female supporters want women to be men’s sexual private property and left-wing male libertarians and their supporters want women to be men’s public and private sexual property.

Read Anti-Climax by Sheila Jeffreys in order to learn how right-wing male-centric polices and their brothers left-wing libertarian policies are all about continued male control and male domination over all women.

Oh, I do think we should panic. Nobody thought, for instance, that this country could go down the “fascist regime” route like the US did and it’s happening.

I think it is important to remember that “abstinence only” sex education works perfectly well for what it is intended to do: to f*ck people up so that they never develop properly. If you hammer down to people early enough in their development that sex is a sin, and that sin must be avoided despite its ever increasing presence, then people will come to see themselves as corrupt for having sinful desires and they’ll forever label themselves as “bad”.

If anyone doubts the hipocrisy of the “abstinence only” values, just look at how little attention (ie: none) is paid to removing the “sinful stimuli” everywhere, ie: pron which, by the way, is rampant in the US, abstinence only education be damned. So, while the media increasingly goes down the “do it now all the time” route, the schools preach “don’t do it ever”.
The whole purpose is to create internal conflict to mess up with people’s heads.

Surely the answer is to uphold the universal principles of freedom of choice subject to informed consent, and to apply them equally to both men and women? I would be the first to agree that most governments are extremely bad at doing so.

I would be very interested to learn whether Dorries is actually proposing that males should have sex with other males when females are not available. If so, she should include it in her bill! Most men are pretty spooked when they discover they have homoerotic tendencies, and try to suppress them.

I think it’s interesting to consider why ‘virginity’ is so highly prized. And the only reason really is that women are considered men’s sexual property and a woman who has had sex with somebody else is considered to be less ‘valuable’.

I agree absolutely that sex education should be about promoting informed consent and freedom of choice. But abstinence only education doesn’t do that, particularly since is anti lesbian and gay. A woman can eliminate the possibility of unwanted pregnancy and reduce her chances of getting STD’s by only having sex with other women. Of course Dorries wouldn’t want THAT to be promoted as a choice.

Also I agree with Mary Tracy. Though I think we should riot, not panic.

of course we should encourage girls to have the confidence to say no to sex they don’t want to have. absolutely. but you do this by educating about consent, respect and sexual desire, and also by educating BOYS about those things! abstinence only is bad news, as it ignores that young people’s sexuality is natural, it ignores teaching about safe sex and it ignores choice. teaching only girls is even worse, because it says that girls are the ‘gatekeepers’ of sex, positions girls’ desire as ‘bad’ and ‘wrong’ and says nothing to boys about consent and respect. there’s a difference to teaching about ‘delay’ – where you encourage both boys and girls to have sex if and when they want to, not because they are pressured into it by a partner or peers, and imposing a blanket ban so you are worthy of the white dress at the end of it.

she makes out that she wants it to be ‘as cool’ to say no as to know how to put on a condom. but what she proposes takes away a girl’s choice to know how to put a condom on her boyfriend and instead is saying you must always say no.

‘Anyway, like Polly, I don’t see any contradiction in being against the sexualisation of young girls while also being opposed to Dorries’ bill. It’s one thing to be against girls and young women being sexually objectified in and by today’s culture, and another thing entirely to say that girls and young women should be basically shamed into maintaining their virginity, which is what Dorries’ proposal amounts to.’

Exactly. There is a big difference between sexualisation and objectification, and sexuality. Sexualisation positions girls as only and always being sexual, in a very specific way of being sexy – padded bras, make up, high heels, etc. it suggests that sexiness is a performance, and not something that you naturally feel because you want to have consensual sex with someone, be that the love of your life or someone you just really really fancy. Abstinence only education denies that young people have natural and normal sexual feelings, have a sexuality at all and prefers a head in the sand approach to sex. To me, sex education needs to be about frank and open discussion about consent, respect, feeling ready, wanting to have sex or wanting not to have sex, not a blanket ban on sex for girls until you meet “the one” and marry him.

Thanks for the clarification. I agree with you, I think that implementing this education in schools would leave the girls who have to listen to it in a weaker position with respect to making decisions about their sexuality.

Cath. Padded bras. Back in 2007 you wrote a Cif article criticizing the amount of gear with sexual overtones being aimed at underage girls. One of the items you mentioned was “lacy black underwear aimed at girls as young as nine”, which was being sold by a national supermarket.

Being inexperienced in this area I got this confused with padded bras, which had apparently yet to evolve. So I stand corrected, but I have little doubt that your opinion of these items would be the same!

There’s also a fairly humungous difference though between a nine year old and a fifteen year old. Or even a 16, 17, 18 year old “saving themselves” for marriage if Dorries has her way – until they then run off with somebody else’s husband of course.

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